Chapter 1149 The Story of Paris (2)

According to the statistics of France in 2004, the total population of France is 62 million, the population of the Paris region is 10 million, and the population of the urban area is 2.2 million. It is the first French city and one of the world-renowned super cities. one.

This number does not include illegal immigrants, tourists, and floating population. Although the population in 1927 has not been checked, it can be inferred from the current data. If Grindelwald’s plan to destroy and burn Paris was successful, one-sixth of the French of the population would die, and it would be a disaster of the century.

Fortunately, Nick Flamel and Newt Scamander stopped them. The explanation in the Muggle newspapers of the fire was that a hotel caught fire. Although it did not cause the scale of the Great Fire of London, it still caused a false alarm for the Parisians.

It is Pomona's habit to go to the library wherever she goes. Before going to the former residence of Nick Flamel, Pomona and Severus, who changed clothes, went to the French National Library on the Seine River.

Like this super city, this super library is also super large. Its predecessor was the King's Library of Charles V, which was built specifically for the collection of royal books.

After years of expansion, there are not only local French books, but also books looted by Napoleon from Italy, as well as some art treasures from the Old Summer Palace.

Pomona has no interest in appreciating the palaces of the Manchus. There is Ludovico Sforza in the west and Wu Sangui in the east. If he hadn't put the Manchus in the pass, with the productivity of the nomads, would they have been able to break through the Great Wall? Defensive lines are still an issue.

There are also many archives of newspapers in the National Library. Pomona looked through newspapers from the Paris Commune period in 1871.

On July 14, 1870, the Franco-Prussian War broke out, but France was defeated one after another since the beginning of the war. On September 2, the French Emperor Napoleon III led nearly 100,000 French troops to surrender.

After the news reached Paris, it aroused the fury of the people of Paris. Two days later, on September 4, revolution broke out in Paris, and the French Third Republic and French Second Empire established by the big bourgeoisie perished.

However, the French revolution did not prevent the Prussians from advancing.

In 1871, King William I of Prussia was crowned emperor at the Palace of Versailles and established the German Empire. The French bourgeoisie requested an armistice. On February 26, the two countries signed a treaty in Versailles. This war allowed the Kingdom of Prussia to complete the unification of Germany and replace the France became the hegemon of continental Europe.

Inherited from the Teutonic Knights, the Kingdom of Prussia has always been known for its strict discipline and high quality of education.

After the outbreak of the French Revolution, Prussia joined the Anti-French Alliance, but was defeated by the French army led by the "Archangel" St. Anjust, and later by Napoleon, who ceded all the territories west of the Elbe River and Compensation of 130 million francs.

After successive disastrous defeats, Prussia was determined to reform. During the Franco-Prussian War, it happened that Bismarck, known as the "Iron Prime Minister" by later generations, served as the Prime Minister of Prussia. On March 26, 1871, he wrote a letter to the Strasbourg Chamber of Commerce, It was later published in the Cologne Daily News:

To the representatives of the Chamber of Commerce in Strasbourg:

Regarding the letter you sent me yesterday, I am now honored to make a verbal commitment to you and confirm it in writing. I shall submit to the Bundestag and the Reichstag a bill for a resolution on the compensation of the inhabitants of the "German" regions of Alsace and Lorraine for the losses they have suffered during the war.

The calculation and basis and scope of compensation and interest are the same as for similar losses suffered by German residents.

March 26, in Berlin

federal chancellor bismarck

The newspapers of the Paris Commune quoted the article on April 7.

The Alsace-Lorraine region was the territory of the Holy Roman Empire before the 17th century, and the local residents spoke German.

France took the land from the Habsburgs during the Thirty Years' War and ceded it to Germany some 230 years later at the end of the Franco-Prussian War.

On April 1, the Reichstag stenographer forwarded Bismarck's speech on German-French relations to French newspapers.

"...the demarcation line is very difficult to determine. The French know better than foreigners how to determine it. The emperor and the government will not interfere in the internal affairs of France in the past, present and future. I believe that the people of this great neighboring country can control themselves future destiny."

The Paris Commune did not rule the whole of France, they only occupied Paris, but their influence was expanding.

Balzac described the Chouin faction, which is generally considered to be royalist, and the Girondins, which represented the bourgeoisie.

After France had signed the Treaty of Versailles and suffered a great humiliation, they were still engaged in civil war. The Paris Commune newspaper compared the Girondins to "a devil who spit out a Jonah." The Girondists and the Juinists likened the Paris Commune movement to organized robbery.

The two sides quarreled exuberantly, work stopped, school stopped, and everyone was busy with political campaigns. The worst thing is that the Prussians don't care, and the French start their own civil war first.

The Girondists even announced that if the representative institutions in Paris were harmed by conspiracy, they would represent the Republic, and Paris would be avenged by all France, and it would be written off from the list of cities.

From September 2, 1870, when Napoleon III ordered the surrender, to September 19, when the Prussian soldiers approached the city, there were only 17 days.

The emperor and the bourgeoisie surrendered, but the people of Paris did not. They formed the National Guard and held Paris for four months.

When the city is under siege, the most dangerous place is the bakery.

Everyone was worried about the food problem. The Paris Commune put bakers on night shift to prevent people from stealing food, and to prevent the Prussians and capitulators from destroying the flour, which disintegrated the determination of the Paris people to resist from the inside.

This national guard army composed of working class has 60 battalions, each battalion has 1,500 people, which replaced the standing army in Paris and became the only armed force to protect Paris.

The newspapers of the Paris Commune said to their compatriots: "Hey, famous Duroc, heroic commander, you have never fought tenaciously with the Prussians, who taught you the effectiveness of cannon fire, But you never hit them with your cannon, you save the cannon for us! Ah! woe to the vanquished!"

The cannons of the standing army were made by ordinary workers. In the 19th century, the Paris area was an important manufacturing center in France. Before the German army entered Paris, these ordinary workers assisted the National Guard in trying to remove a large number of cannons from the German army. , keep them in a safe place.

If the "government troops" tried to raze Paris with cannon, the National Guard could also fire back with cannon. The Germans don't mix in this muddy water, and the shells all over the sky don't have eyes, so they can tell who is French and who is German.

Although the two countries signed the treaty in Versailles, the real peace treaty took effect in Frankfurt.

Eighteen years later, 1889 was the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. At the same time, the London World Exposition in 1851 achieved unprecedented success. France also wanted to build an exposition building that surpassed the "Crystal Palace", hoping to build a monument that could represent the honor of France.

Famous people such as Maupassant and Dumas signed the protest against the construction of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. They believed that the tower stood above Paris like a huge black chimney. The shadow of Notre-Dame de Paris, the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe.

There are also "experts" who believe that the tower's lights will kill all the fish in the Seine, and a mathematics professor who predicts that the tower will collapse halfway through.

All in all, the project started, and it was built, and it became a famous landmark in Paris.

The Eiffel Tower is like someone finding an ugly partner. At the beginning, no matter how ugly it looks, after getting used to it, you can find good things from him or her, and then the more you look at it, the more pleasing to the eye.

The romantic French dubbed her the "Iron Lady," as if thinking of her as a girl was less unbearable.

"Merlin's beard." Pomona tugged at Severus's shirt sleeves, he had already taken off his cumbersome black clothes and put on a white shirt, looking less hot.

"What are you doing?"

"A newspaper from 1871." Pomona showed him the clippings she found. "Come and see how people quarreled in the nineteenth century."

"I don't know French," Severus said, glancing at the newspaper.

"What are you looking at?"

"Paris 'interesting facts'." He smiled strangely. "During the Great Revolution, no matter how the government on the ground changed, the priests underground were still sorting out the bones of the residents who died of the plague. These bones were used as materials for artistic creation. It was forgotten until someone put on a concert in the catacombs."

Pomona took the book, and on the open page was a photograph of a lamp that looked as if it might go out at any moment, in front of a wall of bone fragments.

According to the introduction in the book, this kind of brazier is not used for some kind of religious ceremony, but to test the oxygen concentration in the tunnel. Once the fire is extinguished, it means that there is a lack of oxygen inside, and everyone must return to the ground immediately.

Like a ghost blowing out a lamp.

Pomona couldn't help shivering, and threw the eerie book back to him.

"Any introductions about Nick Flamel?" Pomona asked.

"Nick Flamel lived at 3 rue Montmorency, which is now a restaurant."

"But his real address isn't there, right?" Pomona smiled helplessly.

"He did live on Montmorency Street, but not the current No. 3. The first batch of house numbers in Paris was obtained on September 28, 1728, when Nick Lemay had already hidden the house he lived in. Severus said with a smile, "He 'died' in 1391, and two hundred years later everyone who knew him was dead, so he moved back to his former residence. Those built in the 14th century The house is still preserved, and it was not demolished because of Napoleon and Ottoman's plan. When the Great Revolution broke out, everyone was panicked, so he took this opportunity to hide the house."

"How do you know more than me?" Pomona said with some envy.

"He left me his inheritance, but he didn't leave me his 'treasure'." Severus said indifferently, and suddenly killed a spider crawling across the table with the book in his hand, "I He will always be a 'cripple' in his eyes."

"Let's go somewhere else." She took his hand and said, "I want to go to the Seine."

He said nothing.

"Then I'll go to other bookshelves first." She stood up.

Severus forced a smile, then looked down at the book again.

Pomona left the reading room.

She felt that Severus should want to be alone for a while at this time.

And she really hasn't visited the French National Library enough, God knows what "secrets" are hidden in it.

For the contents of this chapter on newspapers, see the Publication of the Paris Commune, April 7, 1871